Battery (who puts a battery in an XT?) has leaked fairly badly and infected quite a few components, it's done something to the solder to the point I can't desolder anything in that area without damaging the board. It wont melt. Wasn't motivated enough to keep at it (diagnostic ROM would be my next step), so keeping it for parts. PSU seems good, floppy drive not tested, and came with an Epson (trust a printer maker with your data?) 20Mb drive + controller (need to test that too but it does spin up). I was hoping for 8 bit IDE.

When I bid on it, I didn't know they had a battery, found out later :S I did know I was taking a bit of a chance on it though - but in future I'll probably avoid spending money on machines that don't beep.

Just a bit annoyed with Commodore, just like the Amiga 2000 they put a barrel battery underneath the drive bays where nobody could even see it.It was only $40, I got some good parts including a chassis. I've spent $100 on 3.5" MFM drives before, so I shouldn't complain.

You're probably right about the solder - I wonder if it's the type they used or environment - because the 50Z PSU had nice shiny solder that the desoldering station took off in seconds when I replaced the caps - made in the same year (1988). ChipQuik looks like it might be worth playing with at some point.

But I don't want to spend too much time on the Commodore just now, unless I could be sure what was causing the failure. At least with the battery removed it'll last until I own a scope and have more time. It was just if someone had a working board lying around I'd be happy to buy

It's the PS/2 50Z that I really want to get running. Was running reliably a few weeks ago

Edit: bah, you guys got me interested in the Commodore again. Anyway thought I should test out the Epson 20Mb drive - popped it (and it's WD 8 bit controller card) in to a 386 and it booted right up. The drive only makes noises on seek, it's quiter than your average IDE drive. Anyway boots up "Commodore Electroncs Co." etc (thought that was neat), MS DOS 3.2 with all the Commodore tools like SPEED on it. Ability 1.2, MS Works for DOS, and four game folders containing many games which were made way before my 386 was made - can barely play any of them lol Awesome collection for some of my XT's.

Edit 2: I thought the PSU was fine, but testing voltages showed -11V 4.45V and 11V - could be PSU related.

But the PSU is now at a repair agent. I'll let post up with how I get on. With lots of dead supplies starting to turn up, I always find it kind of interesting.Reckon's he'll probably have an answer/quote by Friday.

Still no answer about the PSU, he's asked for a couple more days, said there was nothing obvious wrong.Crossing my fingers he gets the scope out and works it out - I've seen other Astec PS/2 supplies die with nothing obvious as well so keen to get an answer.

Well haven't heard from the repair guy - so I assume that's gone no where.

Replacement PSU from the US turned up - had to go via YouShop because the seller wouldn't send it internationally for me. It looks to be visually in better condition than my original, and works. Model 50 booted up, beeped, and looked for it's precious reference disk (I disconnected the battery).

YouShop.co.nz was actually pretty good, and to be honest I may use them in the future when it isn't necessary as well. Cost was comparable to your usual USPS charges but they had it at my door, box in perfect condition, in 7 days. Tracking software was impressive as well - and email notifications through each stage. Big thumbs up from me.

Thankfully it's the external battery style. It appears to be original, but still working perfectly. It clips in to a special holder - all in line with IBM's 'clip clip' design. When it first arrived (before the PSU gave up) it'd managed to retain all it's settings - including it's old power on password.

The Model 30-286 does have the Dallas RTC though and now it wants a reference disk, so it might be time to crack out the dremel.

Model 30-286 is sorted. AAA battery holder (local Jaycar has moved, and I couldn't find the coin battery clips) soldered on to the DS1287 - used tez's method of a serrated knife which worked well.Floppy drive that was in it had trouble ejecting and needed cleaning, fitted a replacement which needed cleaning but it is working 100% now. Only thing left to do is give the machine a bath, this unit spent ~2 weeks on a lawn, insides are dirty and it seems a few spiders made homes in there.

I was playing Lemmings while doing an install on the RT.Then the next day a friend visits and we play some games on it, I left it running Stunts, came back two hours later to a squeal and no power light. *sigh*

Guessing, since it was on at the time, the failure is likely a transistor/diode that got too hot. I'll have to fix this one though, because I can't just keep buying power supplies from the US.